The Joke
by Only a Seamstress
Summary: My take on the genesis of the Nolanverse Harley Quinn. It's not the Mad Love story, if that's what you're looking for, because personally I feel that many very talented authors have done that on this site so well that it does not need rewriting. Instead, Harleen Quinzel is a damaged, obsessed psych graduate who has been shoved to the bottom of the heap one too many times.


**Couple of things real quick before we starts: 1. I am British and have never been to America. Though I watch way too much TV, this is by no means the same as actually being immersed in the lingo. I always make a point of trying to politely point out when a word not used in English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish/generally British lexis pops up in a fic set in one of these places, to make the writing more authentic, and I really hope some of you cool internationals would return the favour for me, because I want my work to read as convincingly as possible. 2. This is the first time I've ever written for the Batman fandom. I was quite nervous to put this up, because it may just be shockingly bad. Constructive criticism is great, but please try not to be mean. I basically thought that because Nolan had changed a lot about the Batman canon in creating his films, it would be a nice change to alter Harley and The Joker's meeting. I'd be curious to know what you think. If this gets positive feedback, I may make it into a series.**

**That's all there is. Hope you enjoy.**

* * *

Harleen Quinzel understood what it was to be a joke.

She'd been a gymnast as a child. When she brought her first gold medal home, at the age of 8, she'd laid it carefully on her father's desk, hoping that, when he saw it, he'd finally tell her she'd done well. He'd stormed into her room as she was getting ready for bed and flung the medal at her, shouting that she shouldn't leave her toys in his study. She started hiding her awards in a box under her bed after that.

Her gymnastics had gone from one strength to another. She found some form of release in pushing her body to its limits. The world seemed to make more sense for her when viewed spinning through a cartwheel.

She thought she could go to the Olympics. If her parents saw the body that they'd created pictured on TV, performing somersaults for her country, they'd surely tell her they loved her. They'd have to love her, if the whole USA loved her.

But Harleen Quinzel never got to go to the Olympics. When she was 15, her trainer, who knew of her ambitions, had offered her additional, advanced training. The gym had been dark when she'd arrived; it was hours after it should have closed. She'd called out into the echoing space.

Her response had been an arm sliding round her waist. She'd cried out. Hands had been on her, she'd been horrified, sickened by what was happening to her, and she'd lashed out behind her. Her small foot had made contact with a shin, and when she heard the sharp intake of breath the kick warranted, she'd swung a fist round and made contact with the side of his head. Released from his grip, she'd crumpled onto the ground. And then he'd started kicking her. She'd finally scrambled away and run. The light body that had made gymnastics easy also made her able to run fast. And run she had. She ignored the shooting pain in her right leg until she was back safe in her room.

She was a mess. Mousy hair dishevelled, her small breasts veiled in bruises, her right leg incapable of supporting her weight. It had been in a cast for over a year, it had been so badly broken. _Your word against his_, they'd said. His word was that she'd fallen in a routine and damaged her leg, and that subsequently she'd "gone wild" and attacked him, smashing her hand into his skull. He'd had to wrestle to get her off him. Who'd believe the truth next to that? _Plain girl gets assaulted by respected trainer_ just didn't fit. And her parents wouldn't support her in her case. She was "strongly advised" to drop all charges.

The Olympic torch flickered and died for Harleen Quinzel.

She still got a gymnastics scholarship to college. When she told her mother, in the quiet voice she'd gotten used to using at home, that she wanted to study psychology, her mother had responded by saying that the only people who studied psychology were those who were looking to solve their own problems. Harleen had just lowered her eyes.

At college, her professor had taken on look her dyed-blonde hair (she'd felt that a new look might help her to reinvent herself) on the very first day, and had made her life hell. Good marks didn't count for squat when you sounded like an "inner-city ho". She learnt to appropriate a more refined accent, but still she didn't fit in. The popular girls had boys following them everywhere. It was a mystery to her why, when word got out that she'd slept with someone, that she was subjected to endless abuse. People whispered "slut" as she walked past. And then, when she turned down advances, she was called "frigid". Her top marks made other students say she had no life, and made the professor who hated her interrogate her as to how she was cheating. People were a mystery to Harleen.

She'd coped. She'd gotten through. And it had all seemed somehow manageable, right up until she'd gotten home and found her douchebag boyfriend in bed with some intern. She'd just screamed and flung things at them. That had lead to endless abuse from them. The hypocritical tramp with the pneumatic boobs had called her a "crazy whore". And then she'd run away, slamming the door behind her. The fact that she was blinded by tears pissed her off all the more; she was such a freaking cliché.

In her flight, Harleen had missed a very significant announcement on the news, though it was likely she would not, at that time, have given a damn anyway.

And that was how she'd come to be here, on the bridge.

Deep breaths. In. Out. Her feet were on the railing. Beneath her was the dark water. It was the same colour as the night.

A perverse desire came over her, and made her mouth twist into a smile. She rotated herself on the railing and, with no warning, did a handspring. Then a very neat somersault. A backflip. Harleen missed gymnastics. She spent all her time looking for a job, or trying to please her scumbag boyfriend. _This _hadn't happened in a long time. She let out a refreshed sigh when she took up her ending pose.

* * *

Hank O'Hare was ill at ease. He was one of the last cops on his own since the emergency announcement, and he was desperate to find some backup soon. Just his luck to notice a flash of blonde on the bridge.

He was sorely tempted to leave her. The girl looked like an absolute freak anyway. She was doing some sort of gymnastic routine on the railing of the bridge. Was she drunk? There were bigger things to deal with in Gotham City than a drunk doing flips on a bridge. But that said... It was definitely more appealing to be transporting a drunk girl to a quiet cell than to be part of the hunt the rest of the force was on.

He turned onto the bridge, confident he was doing himself a favour by upholding his duty to the poor girl.

* * *

Harleen heard the purr of the engine and turned to see the squad car approaching. Her immediate reaction to seeing it was fury. How _dare _someone interrupt her final minutes on the stage. For once, just for once, this was meant to be _her _scene, her grand finale, and some asshole cop was trying to hussle in on her action? She could hear the blood pounding in her ears as the lard-ass cop lumbered out of his car.

"C'mon, missy, it's not safe up there," he said to her. His voice was infuriating.

"No shit," she returned. The pretentious accent she'd relied upon had disintegrated. It felt good to sound like her, whoever "her" was.

"Now miss, you could fall. We wouldn't want that, would we?"

"Why the hell d'ya think I came up here? I knew cops were dumb, but _c'mon_, can't you see a suicidal person when they're lookin' ya right in your fat face?"

The fat idiot blinked. He tried a different tack: "C'mon down from there, yeah? Let's talk about this calmly. You don't want to do anything rash now."

"Oh for _God's sake!_" Harleen snapped. "Would I _be up here _if I didn't want to? What the hell do ya think I am, too stupid to make my own decisions? You're just like everyone else. Well guess what? This is _my _time to do what _I _want!"

She'd lost it. Totally lost it. She'd been losing it for years, but now it was finally gone. And she'd never felt better.

She leapt down from the railing and relished the look of surprised satisfaction on the cop's face as he thought he'd somehow talked her out of the attempt. Then she swung a delicate foot up off the ground and kicked that smile of his face.

She was strong for someone so small. The police officer hit the ground with a fleshy thump. Harleen snatched the gun from his holster. She looked at him, cowering on the ground, and realised that this was the best she'd ever felt.

Then she heard applause.

She spun round, and out of the shadows a tall, thin figure approached. It was then that Harleen caught up with the news the rest of Gotham City had been aware of for some time.

The Joker had escaped Arkham.

"Now _that_," he said, "is what I call a show."

Hank tried to scramble away, but Harleen absentmindedly kicked him in the gut. He whimpered, but she was barely aware anymore. She was concentrating on the new character that had entered her little tale.

How had he already found those absurd clothes if he'd only just escaped? Had he really wasted precious time to find them, and to put that make-up on? Was it that important to him? _Intriguing._

"Whadda ya want?" she asked, pointing the cop's gun at The Joker's chest and cocking her head to one side. She was trying hard to keep her cool.

"Aren't you just cute as a button?" he said, ignoring her question.

Hank gasped out a "please", and Harleen, irritated by the interruption, fired a bullet straight into his lardy belly.

The Joker laughed riotously. "You I like!"

"Please," Harleen said, stepping over Hank's body without looking at it and moving passed The Joker to spring back up onto the bridge's railing, "I'm an even bigger joke than you are."

"Tell me more," The Joker responded, and to Harleen's surprise, he sat down cross-legged on the ground like a little kid. Harleen, without thinking, sat down on the railing, facing him, her feet swinging above the ground.

She didn't want to give him the upper hand - or, for that matter, admit that her interest in his dealings could be termed _unhealthy._

"Those stories you tell people about how you got those scars?" she opened, ignoring his question as he'd ignored hers earlier, "I know they're bullshit."

He cocked his head to the side as she had done, and made a curious "Mmmm?" noise.

"Yeah," she went on. "Ya wouldn't go to all the effort with the make-up and the costume if ya didn't see the scars as some sort of cathartic event in your life. You draw way too much attention to them for them to have been done to ya by someone else; I reckon ya did that yourself. And that whole bullcrap about your wife... you've been damaged for way too long to ever have formed that type of attachment. Some hussy didn't push you to do that to yourself. You chose to do it just like I chose this," and she pointed towards the water below her.

He laughed again, maniacally.

"You are pretty interested in me, huh?" he giggled.

Harleen's mind flickered to the board that she'd hidden from everyone, the board covered in newspaper clippings recounting The Joker's escapades, and post-it notes with her own findings, cross-referencing most major books of psychological thought.

It had started out as scholarly interest, nothing more. Harleen Quinzel, student of psychology, had an interest in extreme personalities, and they didn't come more extreme than The Joker. But little known to her, William Blake had called Milton "of the devil's party without knowing it." And oh, Harleen had been of The Joker's party. She saw what other people didn't; she saw his _pain._ And it became an obsession, slowly but surely. Harleen Quinzel's own twisted version of a celebrity crush. What she wouldn't give to be Bonnie to his Clyde. And now here he was, right in front of her.

* * *

Any skilled comedian knows that being funny is all about opportunity. And The Joker was a world class comedian.

This suicidal freakshow could prove very, very useful. The way she'd dispatched the cop was positively hilarious, and having a sidekick dear Batman would consider an innocent was excellent leverage. So it was just a matter of finding how best to make use of her. The way that her big blue eyes were going all goo-goo at him suggested he'd need to be developing his talents in a direction he wasn't much used to. That sounded _fun_.

"So what's a cute little thing like you wanna go ending her life for, hmm?" he purred.

She flushed. He stepped closer, putting his hands on the railing so that she was sat in between them.

"You know who I am," he went on, his face now only a foot away from hers, "it seems only fair for you to tell me who you are."

"I'm Dr Harleen Quinzel," she replied, looking up at him through her lashes.

He filed that away in his mind.

"And what makes you think that snuffing out the proverbial candle is the only option left to you, doc?"

Harleen's eyes flashed with a mania that filled The Joker's heart with glee.

"I'm just sick of it!" she exclaimed, "Totally _sick_! It makes me so _mad_! Ya try and try and try for these people, but whadda ya get? Squat! Zilcho! Whadda they _want? _Be a _good girl_, does anyone pay any attention to ya? Course not! Play by their rules and they just insult ya! What's left? All I ever wanted was somebody ta show a li'l _interest, _but..." she trailed off, realising she'd probably said too much.

He smirked. For him, she'd said just enough.

"Don't listen to 'em, sweetheart. They'll never understand people like us."

_That's it, snag her with a little association. Make Blondie think you and her have a special connection._

"They aren't worth you trying to impress them. Anyone who is worth impressing would already be impressed by you."

"Like you?" she asked coyly.

_Oh yeah._

"Yeah," he grinned, "like me. I think we understand each other, little Harley."

"Harley? What's that? Like a nickname?"

"Yeah, a nickname. Harleen Quinzel's kinda a mouthful."

Her face lit up. "Hey, Harley Quinn, like Harlequinn, geddit?"

"Very good!" _Yeah, very, _very_ good. Harley Quinn, I think this could be that start of something really beautiful. You're gonna be a lot of use to me..._


End file.
